I shouldn't have let a guy buy me drinks. I shouldn't have agreed to a hug. I shouldn't have let that happen. Why did I laugh? Why didn't I leave. Why didn't I tell anyone? Why can't I sleep? Why me? I wasn't alone and I stayed with my friends. Everyone just acted like this was okay.

I was barely 12 At the moment and to every girls horror I was sexually abused, molestaed and raped by a foreigner (Trekker) near my home. That painful touch his horondous smile and his forceful ways is still crystal clear. I was raped by being lured for a packet of chocolates and notebooks.

For the longest time I had a regret and blamed myself. I didn't realize until now that I couldn't have done anything differently besides for being more careful of what I drank. I realized it wasn't my fault.

Back in June of 2015, I entered a relationship with someone over the internet. This wasn’t my first long-distance relationship, so I was very aware of what I was getting into distance-wise. This person came off as really funny, charming,

I don’t want to have to tell people and feel their judging eyes stare at me while I talk, and I feel guilty that I wasn’t held at gun point against my will. I feel like I could have stopped it at any time and I didn’t so that makes me just as wrong. I know thats not true I really do and if someone else told me their story and it matched mine word for word I would tell them over and over it wasn't their fault and that should have never happened to you, you have no reason to feel ashamed and I would truly believe it.

Every time I was running/or pushing him away, we were facing his anger. It was everyday story. I remember sitting in the corner of my cousin's room, scared, closed eyes, covering my ears while he was screaming my name outside. To calm him down, my grandparents and his wife makes me sit next to him in living room. Where he was touching my thighs, trying to kiss me, rotating my face to look at him. I can't forget his scary face and laugh. No one was stopping him, he was coming to my room every other night.

I just need someone to understand, someone to give me the love that, I might deserve. I hide my dark thoughts through my personality, a bubbly, silly, larger than life character, who is also shy, and modest. I hide. How do I carry on? How do I find someone who understands? How do I learn to love? How do I gain self belief?

I am sitting here, and a perpetrator is being inaugurated into the presidency, in the United States. I can not function today. I needed to tell my story somewhere because starting last night I kept waking up with these numbers repeating over and over again, my own thoughts and my own story jolting me throughout the night. And today, a day where I can not move. I am frozen.

Fifteen months have come and gone, But memories still burn Everyone has told their story, but I’ve yet to have my turn. On websites, strangers cry for help And others tell their story To be a victim is to have

Once upon a time, there was a girl who experienced her first sexual orgasm. That girl was me, Jessica. It all happened one day around 1997 when my older half sister asked if she could perform a lewd sex act

If this becomes long, sorry! So April/May 2016, thanks to a newspaper article I get back in touch with an old friend. He asks me if I’m happy in the relationship I am currently in with my partner, I admit

I am 14 now, and i have severve PTSD, i can hardly sleep at night and im disgusted with myself. I'm constantly terrified he'll come back, he knows where I live, and hes a family member. My mother trusts him more than my older brother and would make me go places with him if he came back

The most important thing I have learned is that sex doesn’t need to be scary or forced or painful or hurtful or upsetting, and those are the only words I could have used to describe it when I was with A. I want other women to know that someone being your boyfriend does not give them a free pass to do whatever they want. It might seem like an obvious thing to lots of people, but I think when you’re in the middle of something like that, it feels very complicated.

Then, while I was dancing with my back turned toward the male student, he reached around me without warning and put his hand down the front of my pants and inside my underwear. I immediately pushed his arm away to get his hand out of my pants and continued dancing as if nothing was wrong. I was so embarrassed but felt utterly dirty and helpless.

Its just really hard and I can't belive I'm actually writing about it. Every time after it happened I would feel ashamed I hated myself for what I was forced to so and could never look at myself the same way. I lost all my innocence.

If I was placed in a room with him, I wouldn't be scared. I can deal with him, I can put up with him. The thing that would scare me, would be myself. I don't think that I could sit there, while he is blissfully unaware of the immense pain he has released inside me, like a drug, however with the opposite effect; a drug that hasn't left my body since that night.

Then, his cousin would tell him what else to do to me. I've always wondered if his cousin abused him. It went on for about two years. I always thought that if I told anyone, people would believe him because he was younger.

12years later,i cry. I cry for 12 year old me,she deserved better,she did not deserve what happened to her. I marvel at how strong that 12year old girl was,how beautiful she was,how beautiful she still is & i hope that one day,she finds healing.

I have a lot of problems, trust is the biggest one, I am always scared of being hurt again, but I am slowly working my way back to the person I used to be, the one who was stolen and locked away but is slowly reemerging, I will make it.

So i don't blame you I blame myself. I blame myself for letting you touch my body for letting you lead me back to a tent that I once stayed in as a camper. That i once stayed in as a ten year old little girl so excited for the day when she has her first kiss and excited for when she starts high school. Excited for the world to see who she really is.

Editor’s note: All names have been removed in order to not identify the attacker. Unfortunately my story sounds a lot like like a million others. It happened four years ago when I was eighteen. It was a Saturday night during

At that moment in time I didn't even care about what had just happened to me because I was just so focused on trying to help my friend, trying all I could to wake her up but I couldn't move. It was like I was in a room full of people and I was screaming but no one could hear me.

And I barely slept that night I couldn't stop replaying what happen I did the whole way on the trip never said anything to my boyfriend. I wanted to have a good weekend with him. Later that night the guy called me and asked if I was ok and apologized for being so forceful. So I didn't want to believe he raped me I just said ok

I know now that I am no longer alone. Yes, this is still very much an uphill battle, but I don’t want to hide anymore. I shouldn't be ashamed of what happened to me because it wasn't my fault. There is this idea about a grey area when it comes to consent and alcohol. There is no grey area, if someone is unconscious, or not in there right state of mind this is NOT consent. Unless someone gives you full consent to proceed, you don’t.

I have been manipulated, lied too and I was lonely. I was expressing my feelings all over social media, hoping they would realise what they have done. Instead he made himself the victum in the situation…and this was only the

I have a disease that belongs to those of war, to those who’ve seen the blood spilled over a hill that everyone wants. A strategically placed mound of dirt, now covered in blood, a hill that will turn the course

I again sat alone in a waiting room– this time waiting for the "advocate" who was assigned to my case. She came in and was angry. She kept asking me questions I didn't want to answer. She asked me how he undressed me and I didn't want to tell her that I took off my own clothes, so I told her that he did it. She said that proved I was lying. She said that I should still be playing with dolls. She complained that she had been sleeping when the hospital called her in . She sent me to get an exam.

I dont like the label 'survivor of domestic abuse'. I dont think that just because i didnt die that i survived at all. Parts of me that once were great are now gone. The person that i was no longer exists. The person i could of been will never exist. They say that you wouldnt be who you are today without the things that happen to you, good or bad. The saddest part of that is that i agree, i just know im not the person i was supposed to be anymore.

The When You're Ready Project is a community for survivors of sexual violence to share their stories and have their voices heard, finding strength in one another. When you're ready to share your story, we will be here.